January 25 – Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army Rebel group takes over Uganda after leading a five-year guerrilla war in which up to half a million people are believed to have been killed. They will later use January 26 as the official date to avoid a coincidence of dates with Dictator Idi Amin's 1971 coup.

February 24 – Sherri Rae Rasmussen, a 29 year old nursing administrator was shot to death in her Los Angeles home. The crime remained unsolved for 23 years until LAPD detective Stephanie Lazarus was arrested and charged with her murder on June 5, 2009. Lazarus once dated Rasmussen's husband John Rutten while in college. Lazarus was convicted on March 8, 2012 and was sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. She will not be eligible for parole until 2028.

The cargo ship Khian Sea departs from the docks of Philadelphia, carrying 14,000 tons of toxic waste. It wanders the seas for the next 16 months trying to find a place to dump its cargo. The waste is later dumped in Haiti.

October 22 – In New York City, WNBC Radio's traffic helicopter crashes into the Hudson River, killing traffic reporter Jane Dornacker. The last words heard on-the-air are Dornacker's screams of terror, "Hit the water! Hit the water! Hit the water!"

Iran–Contra affair: The Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa reports that the United States has been selling weapons to Iran in secret, in order to secure the release of 7 American hostages held by pro-Iranian groups in Lebanon.

The Northern Mariana Islands enter in a political union with the United States. The island's government adopted its own constitution in 1977, and the constitutional government took office in January 1978. The covenant was fully implemented November 3, 1986, pursuant to Presidential Proclamation no. 5564, which conferred United States citizenship on legally qualified island residents.